Kimmo Svinhufvud

The Coordinated Entry into Service Encounters in Food Shops: Managing Interactional Space, Availability, and Service During Openings

ABSTRACT This article studies openings of service encounters in food shops. Based on video data in Catalan, Swiss German, Finland Swedish, and Finnish, it contributes to the general understanding of openings of face-to-face encounters by highlighting the systematic multimodal and sequential organization of sighting, gazing, greeting, walking, and moving into the reason for the encounter. More specifically, the article casts light on openings in institutional settings by investigating the methodic, coordinated achievement of entry into business and the contingencies involved. The article shows how the availability of the salesperson is displayed for the customer and how s/he orients to it, rendering visible how “service” is accountably offered and recognized.

Normalizing in student counseling: Counselors’ responses to students’ problem descriptions

University students seek counseling to discuss concerns about their academic skills, motivation, time management and well-being. This article examines the conversational activity of normalizing recurrently used by counselors to manage students’ negative emotions and troubles-telling. Normalizing refers to an activity in which something in the interaction is made normal by labeling it ‘normal’ or ‘commonplace’ or by interpreting it in an ordinary way. Three uses for normalizing were identified in a sample of 16 videotaped counseling sessions: (1) supporting the student’s position, (2) challenging the student and (3) presenting the student’s problem as workable. We argue that normalizing is a means of addressing students’ problematic emotions and offering support, yet in a way that maintains an orientation toward problem solving. Furthermore, while normalizing seems to serve affiliation, suggesting that the problems are not unique, it can be treated either as delicate or as problematic by the counselors and by the students.